Who among us has not been amused and delighted by Frank Buckland’s most
original accounts of the various animals, wild and tame, with which,
at different periods of his career, he came in contact? Reading in his
_Life_ the account of the hedgehog imported into the Deanery in the
fond hope that it would devour the black beetles, has reminded us of
some of our own experiences in connection with those animals. We were
troubled with black beetles in our kitchen regions, and were informed
that hedgehogs would eat them. It was long before the _Life of Frank
Buckland_ appeared; we had not the benefit of his experience, or we
might have known that, as he says, ‘they don’t act. A hedgehog cannot
possibly hold more than a pint of beetles at a time, and in my kitchen
there are gallons of them.’
When the first hedgehog arrived and was turned loose in the kitchen, we
expected great things of it; but, to our surprise, the creature would
not take the trouble to catch the beetles. They might swarm on every
side, ‘beetles to right of him, beetles to left of him;’ they might run
right before his eyes—he only regarded them with placid indifference.
He may have performed prodigies of beetle-catching in the middle of the
night when no one saw him; but so far as our observation went, the only
way in which he could be induced to eat any was when they were caught
for him—taken up in the fire-shovel and presented to him on that as on
a dish. Certainly there was no perceptible diminution in the number of
black beetles, and our regret was therefore the less when before long
the hedgehog mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps the beetles ate him;
perhaps he managed to slip out unobserved into the yard. At all events,
no trace of him was ever discovered; not even his skeleton in the flue,
as was the case with Frank Buckland’s hedgehog.
After this, I don’t suppose we expected much in the way of
beetle-eating from his successor, known amongst us by the name of
Hogatha; but she was less shy and more sociable than many hedgehogs,
and amused us by her droll ways. She would of course roll herself into
a prickly ball when touched, but would uncurl as I sat with her on my
lap, and look about her with her bright little eyes. I think she would
soon have become tame, and I should have made a pet of her, but for
one unfortunate circumstance. If even the whale has his unmentionable
parasite, it will not perhaps appear surprising when I mention that
fleas in great number inhabited my little friend’s bristly coat. When
she uncurled as she lay on my lap, they could be seen running in and
out over her odd little head and face. Perhaps this is a favourite
locality, being less bristly, and presumably more comfortable for the
fleas than the more prickly portions of the body. But it was too much.
Not even for the sake of cultivating the acquaintance of the charming
Hogatha, could I face the prospect of restless nights and irritated
skin, so our friendship waned.
It must have been this hedgehog which frightened me one night. I was
not learned in natural history, and didn’t know that hedgehogs could
run fast and mount stairs. It was late at night, and I was in bed, when
I was startled by hearing strange noises in the passage outside my
door. Sometimes they appeared distant, sometimes near; sometimes there
came a kind of scraping at the door, which had a most uncanny sound. Is
there such a thing as being physically superstitious, the mind having
little or nothing to do with it? If so, I was physically superstitious;
and the tendency which was in my blood, handed down perhaps from old
Breton ancestors, was developed (parents and nurses, please take heed
to my words!) by ghost stories told me in my childhood. At the time of
which I am writing, though quite grown up, I well remember there was
one story in particular I hardly dared recall, which, if it came back
to my memory in the night, would cause the old feeling of terror to
overwhelm me like a flood; wherefore it was with an effort that I got
up and lit the gas; then, ‘taking my courage in both hands,’ I opened
the door—and behold! there was Hogatha tearing up and down the long
passage like an express train! I couldn’t consent to have her _and_ her
fleas, and I couldn’t have her without, so I conveyed her down-stairs,
and shut her in the kitchen.
Then there was the sweet little baby hedgehog, given me by a lad who
found a nest in his garden. We didn’t mean to be cruel, either of us,
but no doubt were so, for the poor little thing was too young to be
taken from its mother. I could not induce it to eat or drink, and at
last I gave it to the cat, which had kittens at the time, to see if
she would adopt it. She received it graciously when I put it into her
basket, as though it had been her own kitten. But it was all no use;
the poor little thing pined and died.
We were by this time pretty well convinced that beetle-eating on the
part of hedgehogs was chiefly theoretical, with just as much relation
to the realities of life as many other theories, and no more. We
desired, however, to keep our minds open to new impressions; and when
told that they were useful in a garden because they would eat the
snails and slugs, we believed our informant, and hailed with gratitude
the arrival of two fresh hedgehogs. They were named Paul and Virginia,
and were shut up in the summer-house, with the idea that when they had
become well accustomed to that as their place of abode, they might
not run away when allowed to go loose in the garden. But there must
be some mistake about their fondness for snails and slugs. I took one
to Paul (or Virginia, I am not sure which) one day; and, after some
hesitation, he slowly ate it; but presently threw it out of his mouth.
It didn’t seem encouraging when you remember that they were expected to
help to clear the garden of such pests. However, Paul and Virginia were
allowed, when supposed to be sufficiently at home, to take their walks
abroad, and then they also disappeared, nor have I ever seen either of
the queer creatures since.